THE Legendary commentator upstaged Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling at the Better Together event in Dundee with a passionate speech against a Yes vote.

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Legendary commentator Archie Macpherson

THE Voice of Scottish football Archie Macpherson upstaged the politicians as he made an impassioned plea to keep Britain together.

Legendary commentator Macpherson - famous for exclaiming "woof!" - made an electrifying speech in support of the Union at a Better Together event in Dundee with Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling.

The 79-year-old slammed Alex Salmond for the “deception, deceit and fantasy” at the heart of his independence campaign and urged everyone in Scotland who wants a No vote to fight for it with all they’ve got over the next three weeks.

Observers expected the event at the Caird Hall to be dominated by Brown and Darling putting aside their differences after becoming bitter enemies whilst serving as Prime Minister and Chancellor during the 2008 financial crisis.

But Macpherson completely overshadowed both the politicians with an emotional speech delivered without notes that provoked an ecstatic reaction from the 300 Scots in the audience.

Macpherson said he had accepted the invitation to speak because of the anger he feels over claims by the Nationalists.

Macpherson, who has been commentating on Scottish football for more than four decades, has now been given the all-clear.

The broadcaster, who lives in Bothwell, Lanarkshire, with his wife Jess, slammed Salmond’s attempt to use the NHS as an argument for a Yes vote.

“My wife and myself have benefited enormously from the NHS and it turns my stomach to see the SNP trying to make political capital out of this extraordinary piece of work,” he said.

“The television debates are accentuating the feeling that this is, one, a personality contest, and two, that it’s a general election in which we are voting for a president. It is nothing of the kind.

“I am voting for my kids and their kids... it hasn’t sunk into people. It is your job to go out and question these people who are thinking about voting Yes.

“Ask them to provide the evidence, ask them to provide certainty. There is no certainty. It is a gamble, as Alistair said.”

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He added: “It is a huge gamble and I am not prepared to take it.

“I value the things we have at the moment because we were together, and we should stay together.

“The wrong road is the yellow brick road which they are riding... which ends in deception, deceit and fantasy.”

Meanwhile, Brown launched an attack on the SNP’s tax policies under independence.

He told the audience that while the nationalists “dine out” on ideas of equality, they have “no plans to raise funds that would come from a fairer taxation system”.

Darling had introduced Brown to the stage as his “good colleague”.

That was in stark contrast to his memoirs, in which he accused Brown of “hopeless” leadership and “appalling behaviour” during his time in No 10.

He described the atmosphere at Downing Street as “a permanent air of chaos and crisis” during a “brutal regime”.

Commenting on the rally, former Scottish Labour chairman and Labour for Independence member Bob Thomson said: “This is a sign of the panic spreading in the ranks of the No campaign, following Monday’s debate drubbing and the fact that more and more Labour supporters are moving to Yes - at the last count already more than 230,000.”